The Colombian Presidential election of 2002 was held on May _ and June _, 2002, with Álvaro Uribe defeating incumbent President Andrés Pastrana in the second round with 52.7% of the vote, becoming the first Socialist candidate to win in 20 years. With the victory, Uribe - who ran as a pragmatic centrist - was seen as reuniting much of the old Humbertista coalition from the middle 20th century that gave the Social Party twenty consecutive years of the Presidency. The election was the first time that an incumbent President had been defeated in an election in Colombian history - all other one-term Presidents had declined to run for reelection. The election marked the end of nearly nineteen consecutive years of Republican control of the Palacio Bolivariano, and the 2004 Congressional victories by the PS would give the Socialists full control of government for the first time since 1980.
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